a. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system and apparatus for monitoring activity in a fleet of vehicles for purposes of security, inventory control and management analysis.
b. Background Art
Car dealerships and other agencies that deal with large groups of vehicles must have a system for tracking and maintaining security in their vehicles, as well as being able to make projections of the interest by the public in varying types and models. This type of information is important for sales planning and ordering, and includes not only the sales of certain models, but information on how many test drives are taken, etc.
There are also problems that dealerships have in controlling the keys to their vehicles. It can be inconvenient for sales personnel to return to a central office and locate the keys to a certain vehicle when a customer is interested in driving it or perhaps merely viewing the interior and its accessories. There are thus obvious advantages to having the keys to vehicles kept with them so they may be easily accessed by sales personnel whenever they are needed. There are of course also the obvious dangers of keeping the keys with the car in terms of possible theft and vandalism.
In response to this need, there have been several attempts in the prior art to provide secure key boxes on the vehicles. U.S. Pat. No. 5,563,579 to Carter discloses a key storage device mounted to each vehicle window, which has a compartment for storing access keys. The storage device also has a sensing device which provides a signal to indicate whether an event is routine or hostile. A second device may be permanently attached to the vehicle for regularly transmitting identifying information as to that vehicle. Both devices report the information by radio through an intermediate transmitter network to a computer inside the dealership which records the information along with the time of the event. The information is stored for subsequent retrieval for the purpose of generating reports useful to the dealership management. If an event is hostile, appropriate action may be taken including suitable security alert signaling.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,611,232 to Wunderlich discloses a lock box unit mounted on a vehicle which includes a key box for storing a vehicle key and a locator unit. The locator unit receives a polling signal from a central base station which includes an address for the particular locator unit to be located. The location of the locator unit and the vehicle is determined based upon time arrival data generated by the receiving antennas. The lock box unit may also include an identification device, which records who accesses the key box to retrieve the vehicle key. This information is stored in a memory device.
Despite these advances, problems remain with the security of vehicles and the necessity for frequent replacement of batteries. Prior art systems such as Carter have used a pulse generator connected to the antenna doing a roll call to ask their boxes if they have a request or a problem to report. In this mode of operation, the boxes would always have to be “listening” and would render the idea of battery-powered modules useless, as the drain on the batteries would require them to be frequently serviced. As an alternative, they could be configured to power the box from the car battery, but this is also problematic in locating the box on the drivers' window and being able to remove it quickly with no wires.
In addition, it has been found that these earlier systems may be easily disabled by a moderate blows to the modules, and due to the nature of the alarm reporting, the damage may not be noticed immediately.
Another problem noted with existing systems is the lack of an ability to quickly and reliability locate particular automobiles on the lots. Existing systems have failed in this regard for a number of reasons. For example, existing products do not continually (1 to 5 minutes) receive signals from each vehicle to maintain its location position. Vehicles are moved regularly for cleaning, lot freshening, detail work, maintenance, sales demonstrations, employee use and so on. This creates issues for buyers today that commonly identify specific vehicles they are interested in seeing through online sites. Currently, it has been reported that 30% of the time in this situation, the desired vehicle can not be located. Additionally, systems that might use GPS or multiple radio antennas to triangulate the location of a vehicle are too expensive and require management that is additive to the burden of a VAM access control system which must be used continually for sales staff to access and sell vehicles.
Further complicating the use of earlier systems is the increasing presence of “smart keys” in the automobile industry. Many automobile manufacturers now offer vehicles with these “smart keys” that allow for operation of various vehicle functions so long as the key is within the proper proximity. These “smart keys” often interfere with the operation of earlier systems.
Thus, there is a need for a system which has effective and proactive security features, provides for reliable and accurate identification and location of the cars, and allows the use of battery powered devices that do not require frequent servicing.